Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Ooh, an Inauguration Conspiracy

The Worldnutdaily has this breathless and vague article about the inauguration of the next president, oddly suggesting some shenanigans because the actual swearing in of the president will be on January 21 instead of January 20, which has been the date since the passage of the 20th amendment:

If Barack Obama loses the election to Mitt Romney, his official White House move-out day won’t be Jan. 20, as most have assumed.

If a new president is elected Nov. 6, he won’t be officially and publicly sworn in until Jan. 21, 2013 – which happens to be Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday.

It’s not exactly a state secret that the 57th Inauguration in the nation’s history will take place on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King Day – but it will surely come as news to most Americans. Obama, the first black president, was sworn in on the traditional Inaugural date of Jan. 20 – the day before the holiday.

And this is worth mentioning because…why, exactly? They don’t say. But there’s nothing remotely notable here. When January 20th falls on a Sunday, the inauguration is moved to Monday. It happened under Eisenhower and Reagan. And I don’t know why they pretend that this is only true if Obama loses. They don’t seem to realize that there’s still an inauguration even if the president is reelected, and it will happen on the same day regardless.

There’s also the tiny problem that the 20th Amendment flatly says the president’s term begins on Jan. 20. There’s no mention of its starting after the oath of office; at most, the Constitution suggests he can’t execute his office until he takes the oath. In addition, Martin Luther King Day fell on January 19 in 2009, so Obama took the oath after the holiday, not before. These idiots apparently think the holiday has a fixed date.

Surprised you left off the rest of that post, where WND posted a bunch of random crap from Twitter to support their theory that black people are going to riot. Gives some interesting context to that “Inauguration on MLK Day” thing, huh?

@ ^ Chiroptera : Actually if there’s any justice and if US voters choose wisely Mitt the Shit won’t get toserve as much as a single day.

I don’t think Mittens Rmoney will win the election but its starting to look scarily close.

@4. eamick :

There’s also the tiny problem that the 20th Amendment flatly says the president’s term begins on Jan. 20. There’s no mention of its starting after the oath of office; at most, the Constitution suggests he can’t execute his office until he takes the oath. (Emphasis added.)

Barack Obama has the power as POTUS to execute his office – like legally shoot all his staffers or something? Yikes!

***

So all this fuss over an extra day which happens to be MLK day? Because .. what?

Holy crap! Romney is gonna get screwed out of a whole day of being President!

it’s because Obama saw those day one ads and figures this plan will keep Romney from being able to do them. At the day two presser, Mitt will just tell the reporters, “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get my Day One stuff done due to Obama eliminating Day One. Maybe next term,”

seriously though, we all already know if Romney is elected, there won’t be an inauguration in Washington because Obama, with the help of UN, will declare martial law, impose socialism on the country, and Mitt will take the oath from Justice Scalia in a box car on a train, probably on a siding outside of Indianapolis, waiting to head on to a FEMA camp (Chief Justice Roberts having purchased his freedom by voting for Obamacare). In fact this whole “superstorm” thing – which Democrats named “Sandy” after Sandra Locke (Sondra is just so pretentious) to piss off Clint Eastwood – is probably just a combination of weather weapons testing/a distraction to allow the Nicaraguan army to sneak in the country/a cover for wide-spread voter fraud anyway.

That’s all copyrighted WND so don’t try to steal it. I’m this close to a book and movie deal.

One last thing (always think of more to add after I’ve clicked submit, sorry) whilst thinking of that Bush-Gore election; it seems to me its quite likely that this time too the popular vote and your electoral colledge thingummy may be different in outcome.

IOW, Mitt the Shit may well win the popular vote and yet still fail to become POTUS as Obama wins the key states instead.

Reckon there would be apt “karma” in that given what happened to Al Gore back in 2000 where that situation was reversed Democratic / Republican candidates~wise

If that does happen again in reverse, this Aussie hopes you’ll call it even and have both sides agree to some serious electoral reforms to make your system fairer and more democratic than it is. Scrapping the electoral colledge thingy and instituting preferential voting would be my first suggestions for making things better.

Indeed StevoR I hope that Obama does win the electoral college (with several extra states) but lose the popular vote. That may be what it takes our Republican friends to scrap the electoral college – the realization that the EC is slowly slipping away from them and that a Democrat in 2020 or 2024 might start with 270+ electoral votes

Hi Ed,
This is very off topic but I don’t know where else to post it. I was looking for Glenn Morton’s “Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism”. I had it bookmarked but it, along with his entire site is gone. I know you and he are friends, do you know what has happened? There was a lot of good information on his site. Do you know if it was saved anywhere?

Best thing about getting rid of the electoral college as an Ohio resident would be making life considerably more enjoyable due to much less targeting by candidates and their political ads during election season.

It does seem kind of silly to have a second inauguration for a guy who’s already sworn in. For that matter, the whole thing is overblown, even for the first time around. Couldn’t we cut it back to just an oath and a speech? No parades? No invocations?

I’m seriously in favor of keeping the electoral college but divvying up each states electors by Sainte-Laguë rather than winner-take-all. Or the way they do it in Maine, for smaller states. That way each state is in play, but at the same time it’s not enough to do well in just a few places.